“I like to quote Aesceles who said that politics is a noble profession.” Robert F. Kennedy.

Back in June of 1968, in a small New York Avenue storefront close to where the “Soundtracks” music store stood for so many years, was the Huntington headquarters for Bobby Kennedy’s presidential campaign. Glenn, now a local businessman, remembers working in that office during the days just prior to Kennedy’s assassination. A young man, fresh out of college, Glenn remembers the electrical excitement felt by all the campaign volunteers the night of the California primary. Their candidate was going to win and, what was ever better was that he and his wife Ethel were due to make a fund-raising appearance at a home in Lloyd Harbor that week-end. It was everyone’s expectation that they would soon be meeting the late-coming favorite in race for the White House.

Bobby Kennedy was shot that night and died the next day of his wounds. The United States has never been the same, seemingly suffering from the desensitizing process that comes after one too many losses.

There were many sides to Bobby Kennedy. He may be remembered as a young attorney in the 1950’s supporting as a Senator Joe McCarthy as a Red-baiter. He may be remembered as a righteous hypocrite who pounded organized crime despite his father’s roots as a boot-legger. He may be remembered as the ruthless alter-ego, political hatchet-man for his brother John.

But Bobby Kennedy may also be remembered for having gone through a pronounced metamorphosis during his last years on this planet. He went through a born-again phase reminiscent of Thomas Merton and future saints Francesco di Bernardone and Aurelius Augustinus the latter who, during a debauched youth, is said to have asked God to “Make me holy, Lord, but not yet.” Kennedy made that sort of transformation during his 1968 foreshortened campaign for President as he spoke out passionately and convincingly in support of the impoverished, the disenfranchised, the oppressed. He was humbled by his brother’s death an seemingly became a proponent of liberation theology which suggests that the poor may be blessed but do not have tolerate injustice.

It was during a television interview with David Frost that he first said that “politics is a noble profession.” Within a few months of the interview, within a a few minutes of winning the 1968 California Presidential Primary he was assassinated.

During the nearly thirty years that have gone by since Robert Kennedy’s statement there has been little sign of anything noble at any level of politics in America. Watergate, Abscam, Iran-Contra, Whitewater, are just a few of the obvious headline grabbers over the past quarter century. Rarely can you pick up a newspaper or listen to a newscast without hearing about some public official being investigated, fired, or indicated. Noble indeed…

Van Allen’s Belt is falling,
To surround the city’s haze.
The calendar’s growing smaller,
As months turn into days.
Vitamins smelling rancid,
While the town clerk sits and cries.
Nobody knows the love that sleeps
In Claudia’s beautiful eyes.

The pencil point is broken,
As snow melts in July.
The novice knows his job too well,
A drowning lifeguard soon may die.
It’s plain to see that Hector
Fails much more than he tries.
Nobody knows the love that sleeps
In Claudia’s saddened eyes.

The gin-mill’s selling candy,
To Chinese garbage-men.
The captain cannot spare the time,
To look where he has been.
The dresser drawer is leaking,
The closet’s full of spies.
Nobody knows the love that sleeps
In Claudia’s puzzled eyes.

A lug wrench jams the back door lock,
A blind man cuts the grass.
The wet-nurse chews tobacco,
Before and after class.
The sunset starts a new day,
As we chase away green flies.
Nobody knows the love that sleeps
In Claudia’s frightened eyes.

A baseball sheds its cover,
A grave-digger cracks a smile.
His Uncle Edmond rose at dawn,
Just to spit on the Miracle Mile.
The Venetian blind is rusted,
Since the Bishop told those lies.
Nobody knows the love that sleeps
In Claudia’s weary eyes.

The gypsy black-man dances,
For a Canadian dime or two.
Edsel hides in De-troit town,
Away from a relentless shrew.
Bi-focals made of isinglass,
Worn by a drunken narc who sighs.
Nobody knows the love that sleeps
In Claudia’s haunted eyes.

The end of the world is over,
Love can’t win this war.
A hooded queen shoots basketballs,
So high she can’t keep score.
I find this all can’t mean too much,
Beyond what she denies.
Until they see desolation,
In Claudia’s weeping eyes.